Hearing adjourned for Bay City man charged in Baytown shooting

BAY CITY, MI — The preliminary examination for a 22-year-old Bay City man accused of repeatedly firing a .357 Magnum at Baytown Family Neighborhood has been delayed.

The hearing for Keonte T. Bell was to go ahead this morning before Bay County District Judge Mark E. Janer, but prosecutors sought an adjournment on the grounds that they need more time to gather information and evidence. Janer rescheduled the hearing for 9 a.m. on Sept. 26.

Bell is charged with four counts of felony firearm, two counts each of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of carrying a weapon with unlawful intent stemming from an incident that occurred the afternoon of Aug. 27.

According to court records, Bell told police he and some friends were walking through Baytown Family Neighborhood in Bay City's 1st Ward when Matthew J. "OJ" McBride and Jonathan S. "Black" Blakney accosted him. Bell told officers that McBride pulled a handgun and started shooting at him, and that he then pulled a Magnum and fired three or four times in response.

No one was injured in the fray. Bell told police he tossed the Magnum near Baytown's tennis courts, though officers did not locate the weapon. They did locate spent shell casings of a .40-caliber handgun, court records show.

Bell told officers he had fought with McBride and Blakney in the Midland Street bar district two nights beforehand. He said he bought the Magnum on the street on Aug. 26, court records show.

Bell's attorneys, Jeff Martin and J. Martin Foldie, have said their client acted in self-defense, that he had been the victim of harassment and threats prior to the shooting. Bell was visiting family members who live at Baytown when the incident occurred, Foldie and Martin have said.

Martin said today that to the best of his knowledge, police have yet to recover the gun Bell supposedly used.

Blakney and McBride denied any wrongdoing when interviewed by police. Neither man was arrested. McBride is currently on parole, having been released from prison in January 2011 after serving three years on a charge of assault with intent to rob while unarmed.